Occupational Hazards - Safeguarding: Are ANSI Standards Really Voluntary?

"The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has a difficult task: how can it promulgate consensus standards, written entirely by volunteers in subcommittees and with no enforcement authority? In the case of ANSI's safety-related standards, how does this organization still warrant the attention of machine builders, OSHA, users and labor? In short, how does ANSI obtain respect and avoid being the Rodney Dangerfield of safety standards? The answer revolves around whether ANSI standards are really voluntary, or something much more.

One area of confusion for safety professionals, design engineers, machine builders and users involved with the implementation of the ANSI documents revolves around the enforceability of these consensus standards. After all, these are just voluntary standards, right? Well, the real answer is yes � and no. Technically, ANSI standards are considered voluntary consensus standards and are not written as laws or regulations. In fact, the subcommittees that create the standards have no enforcement authority, much to the relief, I am sure, of the subcommittee members! Yet the standards themselves are widely recognized in industry as an excellent source of reference material, often with an easier-to-understand format than that of OSHA."